Sifting through the roll calls of the past few days, it appears that when it came time Monday night for the "centrists" among Republicans in the House to cast a vote that went against their party, two members did so. (Four other Republicans also went against the party, but as you'll see it wasn't because they were moving toward the center. They were staying well to the "right" on the issue.)

Republican Reps. Peter King of New York and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania joined with 198 Democrats to oppose a GOP-driven measure that would have kept the government open but also would have delayed for a year several key components of President Obama's health care initiative.

As The Hill writes, King and Dent "have been pressing for the House to pass a clean short-term spending measure" that doesn't take aim at Obamacare. It adds that:

"King earlier in the day had said that as of Saturday night, between 20 and 25 Republicans were prepared to buck any new attempts to hold up the spending bill with extraneous measures. But when the vote came to the floor, just six Republicans defected, and four of them were conservatives who felt [House Speaker John] Boehner was compromising too much. ...

" 'I don't want to continue to be a facilitator for both a disastrous process and plan,' [King] told reporters, summarizing his remarks to his colleagues in a private meeting Monday afternoon. He said he told members that 'there are too many who are living in their own echo chamber.' King joked that after he was done speaking, Republicans responded with 'overwhelming silence.' "

Dent said over the weekend that "he's not interested in another political play," and would oppose any further efforts to tie continued government funding to a bid to defund or delay Obamacare, his hometown Morning Call reported.

For the record, the four Republicans who also voted against the measure — because they thought it was too much of a compromise with Democrats — were: